Zankaru called it the best Marvel movie done so far and I agree with him. In my humble opinion, it's one of the finest summer blockbusters ever made.
I have never been a fan of Joss Whedon (I have to admit I have not watched yet Firefly or Dollhouse, but I never liked Buffy or Angel that much, and his work in Astonishing X-men didn’t impress me), but I have to admit he did quite a good job here. His trademark humor is present but, outside of a few bits, I didn’t found it distracting. Indeed, the humor bits are quite well timed and genuinely funny.
As I said in the Random Insanity thread, the plot is not really original or complex: Loki wants to conquer the Earth and is trying to summon an alien army to do so, the Avengers must stop him while also learning to work together (and not killing each other in the process). It’s pretty much standard formula, but I think the simple set-up works in the movie’s favor, especially considering it not only achieves the monumental task of linking all the previous franchises of the Marvel movieverse, but also advances the character arc of all the protagonists in a meaningful way.
And well, while all the characters get their share of moments of awesome, I think Hulk was the one who benefited the most. While Edward Norton did a great job in the Incredible Hulk, I think Mark Ruffalo surpassed him here, this is probably the best interpretation of the character in cinema so far. My favorite part was when he one-shots the Leviathan just after explaining the truth of his situation to the other characters. It gave me the chills.
The part with Agent Coulson was also quite touching. Now, I doubt he is truthfully dead, what with Nick Fury and his standard modus operandi. But even if we don’t see him again in the sequels, his farewell was quite appropriate.
On the antagonists side, Loki is way more dastardly here than in Thor, where he was more of a tragic villain. It was a bit puzzling at first, but I think it works better this way, as it helps to portray him as a genuine menace to the team. And you can still see some of his resentment and inner turmoil from Thor, if only a few times.
As to the Chitauri, they don’t really inspire the same sense of creepiness and dread that the versions from the Ultimate comics do (seriously, if you think the Skrulls are bad in the 616 universe, you have to read the 1st maxiseries of the Ultimates. Calling them a race of complete monsters would probably be a compliment). Here, they are pretty much the equivalent of faceless mooks, but even then, they still come as truly dangerous, and you can see how the Avengers could have been underwhelmed eventually.
And the revelation in the stinger…
Oh! The sequel is going to be quite interesting indeed.
